Demon Marked

light. Not with crimson, but with anticipation. “Someone might know me.”
    “They’d know Rachel , not you. And word would reach her parents that someone had seen her.” Fucked up he might be, but Nicholas wouldn’t do that to them. “They’d try to find you.”
    “I want to meet them,” she said slowly, as if just realizing it—and as if she were surprised by the realization. “I want to.”
    “Don’t even think it. You can’t. Not looking like that.”
    The anticipation in her eyes faded. Anyone else, Nicholas might have felt like he’d kicked a kitten. With this demon, he thought the emotion would have quickly vanished, anyway. No disappointment replaced it.
    She studied his face, then looked away to stick the key into the ignition. Over the quiet start of the engine, she said, “They wouldn’t believe I’m not their daughter, is that right?”
    “Yes.”
    Her amnesia would only make it more difficult to convince them, especially since she couldn’t shape-shift at will—and he’d end up staring down the barrels of Frank Boyle’s shotgun if he electrocuted her in front of them. Seeing the wings and horns might not matter, regardless. If they wanted to believe this was Rachel badly enough, nothing would stop them from doing so.
    So why hadn’t this demon taken advantage of that before now? For someone who claimed to be searching for answers, she’d been slow to seek information from the likeliest source.
    “Why didn’t you contact Rachel’s parents?”
    “What purpose would it serve? They don’t know anything about me .”
    “You’re certain of that.”
    “If they had any idea that someone who looked like Rachel was alive, they’d have come for me. Nothing would have stopped them. But they didn’t come, so obviously they don’t even know I exist, let alone know who I am.”
    She was right. But it didn’t explain how she’d learned that about the Boyles. “You read that on the Internet, too?”
    “No. I just know it. It’s like . . . remembering a fact. I don’t realize the knowledge is there until I think about it, but when I do, I’m certain that it’s true.”
    So her screwed-up memory treated the Boyles’ love for their daughter as a fact. Knowing the Boyles, Nicholas couldn’t argue that it wasn’t. And since neither Nicholas nor the demon had any idea about how she knew that fact, he dropped the issue.
    So did Ash. She sat, looking into the rearview mirror—as she had been for some time, he realized. She’d moved the transmission into reverse, but held her foot on the brake.
    “Why are we waiting here?”
    She lifted her brows at the image in the mirror. Nicholas turned, looked through the back window. Not much to see. Big rigs idling. Empty vehicles in the parking lot, and others at the station fueling up.
    “There’s a dog lying on the seat of that car,” she said. “I’ve noticed that a lot more people in America keep one as a pet. If I got one, I’d seem more normal.”
    A dog? Rage blasted through him, so hot and viscous it felt like vomit. This demon thought he’d get her a dog ? He’d cut off his legs before putting an animal in her care. Stomach roiling at the thought, he faced forward, jaw clenched. He wouldn’t let her see how her comment affected him. Fuck. Maybe she already knew. Maybe Madelyn had told her.
    And she wouldn’t shut up about it. Wouldn’t stop looking at the mirror. “Do you think the family will mind if we take it? They left it in a cold car while they eat. They can’t care too much.”
    Nicholas forced himself to speak, and kept his voice even. He wouldn’t give the demon this part of him. “A cold car isn’t going to hurt the dog.”
    “Not physically. It’s lonely, though. I can hear it whimpering.”
    And he could still hear the pained yip after his mother had cuddled the terrier that had scampered at Nicholas’s heels since he’d learned to walk. He could still see the surprise and horror in her expression when she’d called to him.
    Nicky, love, come quickly! Something’s happened to Ringo!
    Even as a boy, part of him had understood what she’d done. He simply hadn’t believed it, not for years. Now he knew that even though a demon couldn’t hurt a human, animals didn’t have the same protection—and if a demon could hurt a human by hurting something that he loved, she would.
    “Get the idea out of your head and start driving, demon, or I’ll contact the Guardians and have them come for you now.”